Netanyahu: Commandos Upheld Israel’s Right to Self-Defense

Critics of IDF actions against flotilla and other terrorists deny Israel’s right of self-defense, Netanyahu said in response to the Turkel report.

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

First Publish: 1/24/2011, 12:17 PM / Last Update: 1/24/2011, 1:50 PM

Critics of IDF actions against flotilla terrorists deny Israel the right of self-defense. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in response to the Turkel Commission report on the May 31 attack by flotilla terrorists on Navy commandos.

Noting that the modern State of Israel has the ability denied to survivors in the Holocaust, the Prime Minister critics today pay lip service to Israel’s right to self-defense.

“They say, ‘Yes, Israel has a right to defend itself’ – but only in theory because when we come in practice to exercise that right, they accuse us of war crimes,” Prime Minister Netanyahu explained.

“This is what they did when we set up to put up a security fence against suicide terrorists. They actually wanted to take us to an international law court for committing the international crime, so they said, a war crime of putting up a fence against terrorist bombers.

“And this is what happened the second time with the Goldstone Report – when we responded, in the most pinpointed way that any army has responded, to the firing of thousands of rockets on our citizens. And this is also what happened last May – when Israel enforced a naval blockade to prevent weapons and war material from infiltrating into the terror organizations in Gaza.

“The truth is that our soldiers were defending our country and defending their very lives.”